County, UDOT to study SR-10 access

Carbon County and the Utah Department of Transportation are going to work on solving some traffic problems on SR-10 before they happen.

The narrow highway is already showing some signs of overload as development takes place south of Price. Between city limits and Stake Farm Road, there are lots of driveways from homes and businesses pouring cars and trucks into the route. Future development poses some tricky problems of public safety for both county and state.

County planner Dave Levanger said the county and state will split the cost of a planning study to come up with the data needed to create an access management plan along that stretch of road. When this is done, the county will design a master plan to assure that housing and business developments have safe and adequate access to the increasingly busy highway.

Levanger said the ideal situation would be a few access roads entering the highway at right angles, with each access road directly across from the other. If there is ever a need for a traffic signal, it would be much easier to put in place with that kind of arrangement.

Daryl Friant of UDOT said that the state has plans over the next few years to widen and upgrade SR-10. Highway engineers will need to know what the county's long-range plans are before they design those improvements, he explained.

Friant said that the agreement calls for a 50-50 cost sharing on the study. The county will pay the contractor up front and the state will reimburse the expense, he said.

People with long memories will recall that Carbonville Road used to be the main Highway 6. The dangers of unlimited driveway access prompted the state to build the bypass route in 1978-79.